Employee and union inputs into occupational health and safety measures in Chinese factories

Few studies have addressed the impact of employees’ inputs on the protection of their health and safety. The research presented in this paper focuses on Chinese factories and measures employees’ evaluation of the effectiveness in OHS issues of their enterprise trade union and staff and workers’ representative congress (SWRC). The data for the study draws upon a national survey of employees of enterprises in manufacturing industry conducted in 1997 by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. The study finds that the input of the trade union and SWRC does have a significant impact on the protection of the workers’ occupational health and safety.